It didn’t precisely take dogged detective work for an artwork sleuth in Amsterdam to unravel a canine conundrum relationship again to the Dutch Golden Age.
Anne Lenders, a curator on the metropolis’s landmark Rijksmuseum, stated Tuesday that it was kind of accidentally that she found that the barking canine in Rembrandt van Rijn’s well-known “The Night Watch” is a near-identical copy of 1 that options in a 1619 pen and ink drawing by fellow Dutch artist Adriaen van de Venne.
“I wasn’t looking for this; it was really unexpected,” Lenders stated within the glass room the place “Night Watch” is present process intensive restoration.
An artwork restorer factors on the picture of a canine in Rembrandt’s Evening Watch at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, Netherlands, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.
Peter Dejong / AP
She was visiting an exhibition on the Zeeuws Museum within the southern Netherlands when her eye fell on an image of a canine by Van de Venne that was printed in a guide by the poet Jacob Cats. The unique drawing — which turned out to be a part of the Rijksmuseum’s personal huge assortment — was additionally on show.
Utilizing her telephone to match the 2 pictures aspect by aspect, the 39-year-old Dutchwoman noticed “striking similarities” between van de Venne’s canine and the canine depicted in Rembrandt’s 1642 masterpiece.
“The resemblance is so strong that at the very first moment I thought he (Rembrandt) must have used this,” she added.
That’s when the analysis began: a comparability of Van de Venne’s and Rembrandt’s canine; their pose, even the collar they put on.
“The head turns in exact the same angle with the mouth slightly opened. … Both dogs have long hair and ears that hang vertical,” stated Lenders.
Element of the seventeenth century drawing by Dutch artist Adriaen van de Venne which impressed Rembrandt when portray a canine within the Evening Watch, is proven on an easel on the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.
Peter Dejong / AP
Within the “Night Watch,” the canine provides rigidity to a darkish nook of the crowded composition, crouching and apparently barking close to a drummer referred to as Jacob Jorisz and simply behind one of many iconic 1642 portray’s major characters, Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch.
The invention is the most recent in a collection of revelations to emerge throughout a yearslong venture to reexamine the 379.5 by 453.5-centimeter (149.4 by 178.5-inch) canvas utilizing trendy strategies. “Operation Night Watch” started in 2019 with an intensive research of the portray and is continuous with restoration work that’s more likely to take years to finish.
“‘The Night Watch’ is Rembrandt’s most famous painting and we always think that it was created out of nothing, out of his genius,” Taco Dibbits, the director of the Rijksmuseum, informed Agence France-Presse. “But Rembrandt, like the great Italian masters Michelangelo and Raphael, used works of art by artists before him to make his own compositions.”
One factor the Rijksmuseum couldn’t work out was precisely what sort of canine it’s, with professional opinions divided between a French or a Dutch breed. Almost definitely, the 2 artists used somewhat poetic license.
“We will never have a conclusion on which breed it is,” Dibbits stated. “But it’s definitely very much loved.”
Whereas Dibbits credited “well informed luck” for the discover, he stated such discovery may solely have occurred with the assistance of “Operation Night Watch,” a large-scale public restoration venture launched in 2019.
“You would say, well, the painting is so famous, everything has already been discovered,” he stated. “But of course you always with art discover new things and that’s why Rembrandt is such a great artist.”
Agence France-Presse
contributed to this report.
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